It’s not exactly what Kyle Hall envisioned.

Coming into the season, the Syracuse men’s soccer team had four players who would most likely vie for the honor of points leader. Hall, one of the four candidates, would have thought there would be another name on the top of the list as the season draws near to a conclusion.

But the name that reigns supreme does not elicit jealousy from Hall or his teammates – just pride for what senior forward Spencer Schomaker has been able to accomplish as the points leader for the Orange (7-5-3, 3-5-1 Big East) this season.

‘It’s great to see,’ Hall said about Schomaker’s success. ‘He just wasn’t finding (luck) at the beginning but now it seems like everything is going his way. He’s been contributing quite well to the team and (as) point leader he’s doing real well.’

Schomaker leads SU with 14 points and is tied for first in goals (five) with junior forward Tom Perevegyencev. He also has two assists.

Schomaker had three goals and nine points coming into the season, with just one goal and assist in his last two years.

He earned Big East Honor Roll accolades for his efforts last week, which included a hat trick against Adelphi in a 3-2 Syracuse victory on Oct. 21. He became the first SU player to accomplish the feat since Kirk Johnson in 2001.

Even though he hadn’t lit up the stat sheets coming into this season, Schomaker expected a big season from himself.

He wanted to continue the strides he made as part of the Tacoma Tide FC Premier Developmental League squad this summer. Schomaker played 850 minutes for the squad and tallied nine goals – second highest on the team – along with five assists. The team played from May to June, winning the Northwest Division and advancing to the conference quarterfinals.

‘I had a great season over the summer so I just tried to carry that into it,’ Schomaker said. ‘I want to have a big year just so the team can do better, and I did have expectations going in because of the year I had this summer.’

Besides his prowess this summer, Schomaker has been helped this season by a full cast of Orange players that can notch goals. SU head coach Dean Foti said the team’s potent attack of Schomaker, Hall, Perevegyencev, and junior forward Hansen Woodruff helps each player in terms of scoring opportunities.

The quartet has combined for 43 points (17 goals and nine assists) while scoring 68.3 percent of the team’s points. Having four players who can score does not allow the defense to focus specifically on one player and opens up lanes and room for the other players to make plays. While others have led the stat sheet at various points, Schomaker has been the player to capitalize recently with five goals in his last 10 games.

Hall believes the difference in Schomaker is a result of the senior’s newfound efficiency. Schomaker has converted five of 22 shots on goals. Last season he only had 20 shots, one of which found the back of the net.

‘He’s more confident as a player now and at the beginning of the season he needed to get the monkey off his back,’ Hall said. ‘He always had those opportunities to score, he just kind of kept missing them a little or the goalies made great saves, and now that he got that first one at Marquette, he’s been on a roll.’

With his senior season coming to an end, Schomaker hopes he gets the chance to pad his statistics at the Big East Tournament. To do so, he knows the Orange needs him and its other goal-scoring threats to be even more potent.

‘Looking at the schedule and seeing there’s only potentially three games left in my career is kind of daunting,’ Schomaker said before SU’s 1-0 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday. ‘It makes (it) that much better and you want it that much more, because the seniors on the team know if we don’t win this game and we don’t make it onto the tournament, then there’s not another year.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on October 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm